“The 2011 season was mostly underwhelming, with a couple of Hall of Fame episodes mixed in; would these new ones feel even rustier?” Alan Sepinwall writes, after fearing Curb might have lost its edge after so much time away. “Thankfully, ‘Foisted!’ felt like… well, like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Not a pantheon installment — which, given how many amazing episodes the show has done over close to 20 years, is no sin — but wickedly funny at times, and effective at both bringing us back into the fold and setting up this season’s storylines.”

Larry David’s HBO comedy will be slightly different when it returns Sunday after a six-year hiatus -- not only will episodes will be super-sized, they'll also be denser. Executive producer Jeff Schaffer explains, “That’s the one thing we were rusty at: Guestimating how long these shows were going to be based on how much we were putting in. We were in the editing room last week editing episodes nine and 10 and I asked, “How could we have ever thought this show could have been a half hour?” We went back to look at the outline and said, “What were we thinking? There are like 30 scenes!” The longest run time is going to be episode 10, the season finale. I don’t have an exact time because we haven’t finished editing it, but it’s big. Closer to an hour. HBO was very generous with their time!